So I put on an act and spoke to him in Ukrainian.
"Give us a sledge, dad", I said.
And he said:
"Can't.
Them officers have pinched all the sledges and taken them off to Post."
I winked at Krasin and asked the old man:
"God damn the officers.
Where've all your lads disappeared to?"
And what d'you think he said?
"They've all run off to join Petlyura."
How d'you like that, eh?
He was so blind, he couldn't see that we had officers' shoulder-straps under our hoods and he took us for a couple of Petlyura's men.
Well, I couldn't keep it up any longer . . . the cold ...
I lost my temper ...
I grabbed hold of the old man so hard he almost jumped out of his skin and I shouted-in Russian this time:
"Run off to Petlyura, have they?
I'm going to shoot you-then you'll learn how to run off to Petlyura!
I'm going to make you run off to Kingdom Come, you old wretch!"
Well, then of course this worthy old son of the soil (here Myshlaevsky let out a torrent of abuse like a shower of stones) saw what was up.
He jumped up and screamed:
"Oh, sir, oh sir, forgive an old man, I was joking, I can't see so well any more, I'll give you as many horses as you want, right away sir, only don't shoot me!"
So we got our horses and sledge.'
'Well, it was evening by the time we got to Post-Volynsk.
The chaos there was indescribable.
I counted four batteries just standing around still limbered up - no ammunition, apparently.
Innumerable staff officers everywhere, but of course not one of them had the slightest idea of what was going on.
The worst of it was, we couldn't find anywhere to unload our two dead men.
In the end we found a first-aid wagon. If you can believe it they threw our corpses away by force, wouldn't take them.
Told us to drive into the City and dispose of them there!
That made us really mad.
Krasin wanted to shoot one of the staff officers, who said:
"You're behaving like Petlyura" and vanished.
Finally at nightfall I found Shchetkin's headquarters car - first class, of course, electric light . . .
And what d'you think happened?
Some filthy little man, a sort of orderly, wouldn't let us in.
Huh!
"He's asleep," he said, "the colonel's given orders he's not to be disturbed."
Well, I pinned him to the wall with my rifle-butt and all our men behind me started yelling.
This brought them tumbling out of the railroad car.
Out crawled Shchetkin and started trying to sweeten us.
"Oh, my God", he said, "how terrible for you.
Yes, of course, right away.
Orderly - soup and brandy for these gentlemen.
Three days' special furlough for all of you.
Sheer heroism.
It's terrible about your casualties, but they died in a noble cause.
I was so worried about you . . ."
And you could smell the brandy on his breath a mile away . . .
Aaah!' Suddenly Myshlaevsky yawned and began to nod drowsily.
As though asleep he muttered: